


"Hey, Mom?"

by PedroUnicorn



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Colonist (Mass Effect), Custom Commander Shepard, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shepard is Hindu - or at least was when she was growing up, in which Shepard had a behavioral disorder as a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PedroUnicorn/pseuds/PedroUnicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzy Shepard accidentally calls for the attention of a mother she lost when she was 16</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Hey, Mom?"

“Hey, Mom?”

     The words had been simple, absent-minded in nature and the generally harmless. Said in a moment of weakness and an inability to think clearly while pouring over a crossword puzzle, half distracted by a question about famous Asari vids and the other half by the bitter taste of a shitty cup of instant coffee.

  
     That shitty cup of instant coffee was her reason for even saying the words in the first place, she needed milk and sugar for her mug and it had slipped out before she could even look up from her Omnitool. Normally such a faux pas would be laughed off or ignored, and a few lower rank crew members ignorant to exactly what had just happened did exactly that and went about continuing their chatter. When the discomfort of the other's silence pervaded, however, they soon caught on and the crew deck was soon filled with only the soft hum of the SR-2’s engines that rumbled deep within the ship’s core.

  
     Garrus had been the first to notice, half choking on a mouthful of juice when the words suddenly cut through the air and destroyed the easy quiet that had been there not moments before. Almost immediately after was Tali, who was rummaging in a high cupboard for some Quarian-safe drinking straws and whose movements hitched with an uncharacteristic lack of grace while she removed them from the top shelf.

  
     Shepard had been trying to get Samara’s attention when she had said it and now her face was filled with red hot shame, heat swimming up to the tips of her ears and she refused to raise her head. She sat stiffly in her seat, unable to address her slip up and swallowing hard while those around her attempted to get back into the mood that had been shattered, started rather unsuccessfully by Garrus announcing in a voice inappropriately loud and equally as awkward “Whelp, better get down to the canons,” and scurrying away with a bit too much haste. Tali soon followed suit, stammering something about antibiotics and making a beeline for the elevator.

  
     Such a casual mishap had somehow managed to curdle everyone’s mood in one foul swoop, but the reason was unknown to Kenneth and Gabby, who just shifted uncomfortably in their chairs and passed confused glances to one another over their cups of coffee.

  
     The truth was Lizzy Shepard had lost her mother long ago, a woman who she adored and cherished but hardly spoke of to anyone. A woman who had been memorialized in ink on her left wrist in the shape of a small cow’s head, a symbol so cryptic many just assumed it had something to do with the very ancient human cultural roots of which she was so proud. The words that had quite literally emptied a room had not come out of her mouth since she was a teenager nearly fifteen years ago.

  
     She couldn’t exactly be sure why she said it, calling for the Justicar’s attention wasn’t something she did rarely as the matriarch had been training her on how to control her emotional biotic outbursts as a result of PTSD. She’d spent many hours with Samara and had never once called her by anything other than her name, and while hiding her reddening face in her Omnitool Lizzy could feel herself screaming internally.

  
     She was so busy melting in place that she hadn’t heard Samara walk over to her and place a few packets of sugar at her elbow, pressing a hand softly on the top of her head and smoothing her tousled pink curls before walking away without another word.

     She avoided Samara for the next few days, skulking in corners and refusing to take her on missions, ducking behind walls to keep from running into her and skipping her morning biotics meditation sessions altogether. She had finally been unable to avoid her one morning two days later while coming down from her cabin to get a bowl of cereal. It was very early; back on earth such small hours of the morning called for the chirping of birds and the sky illuminating on the horizon. Here though, in the empty vacuum of space, the lack of motion-sensor lighting overhead was the only indicator that anybody was sleeping.

  
     Shepard was walking back to the elevator to eat her cereal in her room, eyes red from both a lack of sleep and the PTSD fueled night terror that had awoken her rather rudely not minutes ago, when she ran – quite literally – into the Justicar.

     “Commander,” Samara said calmly, watching as a rather frazzled Lizzy Shepard bent over to pick up the spoon that had gone clattering to the floor. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

     It wasn’t unusual for Samara to address her so formally, Shepard had grown used to that even after their weeks of meditation together, but there was something especially cold in her voice that made Lizzy feel guilty for avoiding her. She sounded reserved, like she was withholding the normal warmth the two of them shared, taking the commander’s lack of visits recently as a withdrawal of friendship.

  
     Shepard swallowed hard and stared at Samara with tension in her face, brows hitching just above her eyes and tightness in her lips. “Uh, Samara, I, uh-.”

  
     “I’m sure you have been tired, you are so busy. Would you care to join me this morning?” She asked, saving Shepard from attempting to flounder for an excuse.

  
     Shepard, a woman of notoriously few words, simply nodded and swallowed hard, following Samara to the observation deck with an armful of what was going to be her breakfast.

  
     Lizzy had become very comfortable in the SR2 much sooner than some of her crew members expected, and had developed a habit of walking barefoot around the ship in the morning and late at night with little care for what others though. Now, as she walked silently behind the Asari, the only sound that could be heard other than the Justicar’s footsteps, was the sound of her bare feet on the cool metal of the Normandy’s floors.

  
     Shepard, in only a pair of N7 running shorts and a white Alliance tank top, was never anything but stunned at how elegant Samara looked in her own nightwear. It reminded her of a Victorian nightgown, the same high collar and billowing skirt but without the sleeves; it hung shapelessly off her body in the most graceful way, catching her curves here and there where it touched her skin, thin semi-translucent fabric shimmering silver and blue under the cold overhead lighting.

  
     They entered the room in which Samara had been staying, who spent her day meditating or reading, once Lizzy had caught her watching home vids of her daughters on her Omnitool, which Samara swiftly addressed as “The only things she couldn’t give up as a Justicar.”

  
     “Sit, commander,” Samara said, gesturing to the spot in front of her. Lizzy always sat opposite to Samara when she felt like things were in a particularly dark place. The Justicar had a way of sensing disturbances in people, whether it was due to living for hundreds of years or perhaps intuition alone she wasn’t sure (Lizzy didn’t know many matriarchs to base her assumptions off of), but she’d always been grateful for the Asari’s willingness to address her problems when most others skirted them without acknowledgement.

  
     Lizzy reached into the cereal box and grabbed a handful of almond corn flakes, shoving it into her mouth with an open palm before setting everything down on the couch that had probably never been used. She brushed her hands together to get rid of any extra crumbs and sat in front of Samara, legs crossed but both pads of her feet facing up on her thighs. Her mother taught her a bit of yoga in her youth to calm her anger issues after her father had left them, and so this position had gone through many changes in her life. With her mother it was a source of comfort, after she was gone it was a bitter reminder of the woman she had lost, and now it was back to being a way to calm her mind.

  
      She and Samara synched their biotic wavelengths as they often did, rising off the ground at the same moment and hovering there, weightless, as flames of blue energy licked up around them. Lizzy began breathing the way the Justicar had taught her, not dissimilar to something her mother had called “Ujjayi.” They floated there for some time in silence, but a tightness was slowly forming in Shepard’s throat as she awaited the question she knew was bound to be asked.

  
     “Shepard,” Samara said softly, both out loud and in her head. That connection between them when they meditated was almost like what she had explained Asarai melding to be, a bridging of minds and very intimate but without the arousal or ramifications of pregnancy. When the Justicar had first suggested it Lizzy had insisted they not try, the thought of someone else in her head made her squeamish and even Samara whom she trusted with her life didn’t belong in there. Eventually though she found Samara’s presence to be rather soothing, like applying a cold damp towel to a sunburn.

  
      Lizzy stiffened at the sound of the Justicar addressing her, knowing what was coming next, asking her why she’d called her Mom and what issues were there, but she wasn’t sure if she was quite ready to go there. Fifteen years later and she still couldn’t speak of her mother without crying like the same pathetic child who had been found by the Alliance cowering in a kitchen cupboard.

  
      “Tell me about your name,” Samara said coolly. Lizzy felt herself frown for a moment, confused by the question but relieved it wasn’t about the slip up the other morning.

  
    “My full name?”

     “Yes.”

     There was a long pause before she continued but finally Lizzy addressed the question. “Latesh is my first name,” she said. “Latesh Elizabeth Shepard.”

     “Latesh,” Samara repeated quietly, urging her to go on.

     “It’s a boy’s name, traditionally, I found out that when a bunch of other Indian kids at my school began teasing me,” she snorted, recalling the memory with distaste. “It’s a Hindu name for happiness, and Elizabeth for the English Queen.”

     “Why the Queen?”

     “My Mom, she was reading all these books about Elizabeth the First while she was pregnant with me and found her so graceful and powerful. I assume she wanted those features in her own daughter when she gave me her namesake.”

  
     She felt her face spread to a smile as she thought of her mother, petite and brown with a huge swollen belly. “She told me once she knew I was going to be a fighter because I was the biggest of her babies. She said she couldn’t see her toes with me and that I was kicking constantly.”

     “What was her name?”

     This gave Lizzy pause, drawing in a breath before continuing on the subject of her mother.

  
     “Abha,” she spoke quietly and only in her mind now. “It means lustrous beauty.”

  
     “Was she very beautiful?”

  
     “She was. Maybe not by, you know, the societal definition but my mother was the most beautiful person I knew. She was very smart and very strong, never afraid to defend her children,” Lizzy laughed privately. “Once she explained it to me like she was a mother elephant, elephants, they’re matriarchal in nature, the oldest female and all of the mother run the group. And if you go near their babies they’ll trample you.”

  
     “Abha would have trampled someone for you?”

  
     Lizzy had to laugh at that, throat growing uncomfortably knotted at the sound of her mother’s name. “Yes, for sure.”

  
     Tears gathered on her lashes and she cleared her throat, chest tightening as she held back cries with a soft sniffle.

  
     “When was the last time you saw her?”

  
     “The day she… died. She was helping me with my homework in our kitchen, all my other siblings were playing with the neighbors but I had to stay in because my fits were getting so bad that I couldn't concentrate on anything. I remember so clearly hearing the noises outside. You know, screaming and explosions… gunfire. She told me to get into the cabinet under the sink, like without even thinking. Her very first response was to keep me safe,” tears were falling steadily now, sliding over the curve of her cheek, down her neck and chin.

  
     Lizzy was going to wipe them away but Samara encouraged her, without words and only through a soft whisper in her mind, to stay still. That was part of the rules during their meditation sessions, being still and allowing your body to release without acting out. When Lizzy continued she was speaking in Hindi now, as she sometimes did when she was too emotional to bother translating to English in her head, Samara did have a translator but it didn’t matter, when they were connected like this it was impossible for either of them to misunderstand the other.

  
      “I was so tall and gangly, my arms and legs felt too long for my body, I had to like, cram into this cupboard you know? My mom, she pushed over the entire table so it was in front of the door, so I couldn’t get out and they couldn’t get in. But I could still see, I could – I could see her,” She was struggling with her words now, choking back sobs and shaking. The memory flooded her mind in precise detail, fear burning it to her retinas so she saw it every time she closed her eyes.

  
     The sun was pouring into the room as the front door was open, five large shadowy figures looming in the frame and blocking out long thin shadows of light across the tile floor. Her mother, ferocious and beautiful, stood with her back to the cabinet in a simple red sari, dark hair splayed about her face as the hot wind outside came rushing through the door and blew back the delicate scarf that covered her head. “My light! Do not make a sound!” She cried in Hindi, wielding nothing but a kitchen knife in her right hand. Lizzy could do nothing but watch as the slavers went to grab her mother, who swung her arm so deftly that she managed to catch one of them in the face, gouging out one of four eyes and slicing down to his throat. He fell with a gurgling sound, clutching at the ends of her dress before seizing and finally sputtering to death.

  
     Her beautiful red and gold sari, one Lizzy had seen many times before today, was marred by a splatter of thick dark blood spurting from the Batarian’s neck. She screamed and swung for another but the slavers shot her once in the side and she stumbled, swinging with the knife again and slicing one’s arm just enough for him to step away from her with a yell, sending a spray of bullets into her chest and she fell backward with a thud, still grasping the knife in her hand. She moved to get up fruitlessly before a one of the four Batarians shot her in the forehead, the same one that she’d cut on the arm.  
Samara’s presence lingered in her thoughts, and Lizzy knew she could see the images as they flashed before her closed eyes. Even as Shepard seemed to relive being found by the alliance muttering the Durga Mantra and shaking vigorously, Samara was there. She was a ghost visiting the memory for only a moment, and Lizzy's face flooded with heat and embarrassment.

  
     “I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t look - I watched the whole thing - I - I did nothing…!” She began hyperventilating, unable to keep with the steady Ujjayi breaths as she clutched for her throat, choking on her own sobs. She felt herself hit the floor as she was no longer able to control the meditative floating, still writhing with biotic energy only now the mind link was broken.

  
     She felt like she was sinking inside of herself, drowning in her own choked up cries as her shoulders wracked with sorrow. She held her face in her hands, fingertips pressing hard into her skin and pulling at her cheeks and mouth.

  
     Lizzy wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but suddenly Samara’s arms were around her, chin resting upon her head as a hand smoothed over her hair. They sat like that for a long time, not speaking as Samara allowed Lizzy to ride the waves of guilt and rage and sorrow that crashed over her until she had cried herself out, breathing soft ragged breaths into Samara’s chest and shaking uncontrollably. The Matriarch simply held her in her arms and rested a cheek to her forehead, comforting her in the exact way she knew was needed. Maternal instinct was the closest thing Lizzy could compare it to.

  
     “Your mother was beautiful and strong and a ferocious warrior for her children. I could only dream to be half of what she was,” Samara said in a quiet clear voice. “I am honored to have been compared to her in your mind, mistake or no. And although I could never replace her, I hope I can be a small part of what she was to you, should you ever need me.”

  
      Lizzy sniffled and Samara parted their embrace with a soft small kiss on Lizzy’s forehead as the Justicar wiped a tear that had gathered at the peak of her light blue cheekbone.

  
     Lizzy, the famously reserved and quiet young commander, nodded to express her thanks to the Asari, whose pale face glowed in the light of the shining stars. The gesture was all that was needed and Samara stood before helping Lizzy to her feet, watching quietly as the human she had come to care for so deeply gathered her breakfast with puffy eyes and headed for the door.

  
     “Sleep well, Commander.”

  
     “Latesh,” she insisted over her shoulder while she stood in the doorway.

 

“Latesh.”

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought trying to romance Samara was kid of gross and felt she was more of a maternal figure (save for the obviously absurd outfit) especially to a colonist Shep who lost her entire family and needed a source of platonic female energy in her life. Not to mention Samara has lost a daughter, I'm sure having Shepard to look after would be an attempt to fill that void in some way.


End file.
